Free Hong Kong or else, China: US
Sanctions threat vs. hard-line Beijing
Tensions rose between the United States and China on Monday after the US national security adviser threatened sanctions over harsh security laws Beijing plans to impose on Hong Kong
Robert O’Brien said the Chinese Communist Party was poised to restrict Hong Kong’s autonomy, established when the former British colony was returned to China in 1997.
“It looks like with this national security law, they’re going to basically take over Hong Kong,” he said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday.
And if they do, “Secretary [of State Mike] Pompeo would likely be unable to certify that Hong Kong maintains a high degree of autonomy,” O’Brien added.
“And if that happens, there will be sanctions that will be imposed on Hong Kong and China. It’s hard to see how Hong Kong could remain the Asian financial center that it’s become if China takes over.”
O’Brien said he believed the world’s corporate community would abandon Hong Kong if China ends the “one country, two systems” government that has been in place since 1997.
“I just don’t see how they can stay.
One reason that they came to Hong Kong is because there was the rule of law there, there was a free-enterprise system, there was a capitalist system,” O’Brien said, adding that Hong Kong would suffer from “terrible brain drain.”
Meanwhile, China urged US officials on Monday to undo new sanctions against nearly three dozen companies that were blacklisted by the US Department of Commerce.
Washington “violated the basic norms governing international relations” by adding organizations to its “entity list” restricting US companies from doing business with them, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman
Zhao Lijian said at a news conference.
“We urge the US to correct its mistake, rescind the relevant decision, and stop interfering in China’s internal affairs,” Zhao said, according to a transcript from the ministry.
On Sunday, a top official from the communist government accused the US of pushing the two nations toward a Cold War.
“It has come to our attention that some political forces in the US are taking China-US relations hostage and pushing our two countries to the brink of a new Cold War,” Foreign Minister Wang Yi told reporters in a news briefing on Sunday.